This is a short medicine story, a gift for all the lovers of story and creators of art who wonder "Do I have the heart to keep at it?" More than ever and ever more into the vast tomorrows yet to come this lone Dandelion (and the words from this Devon light) had the answer. Especially, for Terri Windling who makes space for creation.
DANDELION FOR STRENTH OF HEART
An original medicine story and photographs
By
Yvonne Mokihana Calizar
The last of the good collecting moons lit the sky making the trek easier.
"A short walk really," the little witch reminded herself though even the fifty steps were sometimes too much. The cold was coming.
"Mid-November, it should be getting cold." The voices reminded her of two things: seasonal cycles and she was here not there.
In the larger picture the oddly laid arrangement was enough to keep the old couple comfortable exquisite in its simplicity. Parked on the edge of the gravel lot the sleeping wagon was blessed with a bigger share of the modest sunshine available during a forest winter. the move into a more public place took a bit of getting-used-to-ness, but not much.
There was the long thin shelter where hot water made it possible to shower themselves, two large sinks provided triple-duty access for dish washing, laundry by hand, and a soaking tub for the small and aging witch. Her son had to ask for clarification when the soaking tub option came up. Over their cellphones he asked, "You fit in the sink?" He is one of the few humans familiar with the layout of the compound.
"Yup," his mother proudly proclaimed describing how she prepares and cleans the stainless sink, sets up the collapsible step stool and carefully climbs in folding her still-nimble enough limbs into the sink of hot water with a hand full of salts and quiet time with favorite tunes from her home islands.
The wash house tucked against one of the garage walls is half-way between the wheeled sleeping wagon and the eating hut. Until it gets really cold, the cooking is done outside--under the eaves of the wash house.
The morning walk took a bit of organizing, no small chore fresh out from under the coziness of quilts and comforters. Back and forth to fill a pan, heat water, wait in the hut for the boil, and then back outside to fill a mug for the first cup of tea. Today it was the dried chunks of Dandelion roots she'd chosen. "For strength of heart," this time the Writing Witch put her intention onto a space held for gentle souls and hearts of lions with creative work to do.
In both the details and the largest picture imaginable the small old witch knew what mattered and did that.
The photos in "Dandelion for Courage of Heart" are mine, save for the last, which was taken by my husband Pete. Hover over the photos for short messages about what you see.
While winter sets frost and freeze here in the woods, my wandering spirit is warmed by the search of story in the depth of web-making. The Safety Pin Cafe is open to that spirit of story searching fueled by the cold night dreams, drama in some cases; and as well she is open to the everyday magic that is born of necessity.
"Folk tales are like collective dreams; they are told in the kind of voice we hear at the edge of sleep, mingling the facts of our lives with their images in the psyche." - Lewis Hyde, The Gift
When winter comes we often tell ourselves, we aren't ready for it. As if the season was part of our checklists, we say the thing that is exactly so. We aren't ready, but winter doesn't think about whether she is ready. She simply lives it. The world I live in, as writer and border witch, is one that does exactly as Lewis Hyde suggests mingling and weaving the facts of my life with the images in my 'mind' but something else happens as well. I feel the border where the everyday and the myth cross and park myself there, and pin the magic together to create story. Let me spin a tale from this and see where we are ...
Juggling
I am in the middle of putting down the newest story in the on-going ka'au (saga) of The Safety Pin Cafe. New characters and the plot begun with a silver-haired raven and an aging woman we come to know as 'border witch' has grown. (I hope adventurous readers and myth-makers will join me in the the magic of the story already put down ... in a workshop starting January 1, 2014. Check it out here.) The story that grows now is about a juggler; meddlers; mending; and more border crossings. My process of writing is organic and spins invariably from the daily reality of living. This juggler is based roughly on the character and life of my younger brother. He asked me to write his story, and that is what I'm up to. He may or may not recognize himself by the time the story is put down, but "it makes no nevermind." Juggling is what a writer goes, and there will be much more added to the arch of the story than a straight line chronicle.
Last night as I slipped into the dream place images and ideas fished around in my mind, and in the morning I settled them into my belly. Breathing deeply I filled up with new life and let it all swirl in the darkness of the vardo. Juggling was on my mind and in my breath. I wondered this: "Women Jugglers" ... as I felt the part.
Picking up the threads
The story of the juggler is growing nicely, the characters and the continuity full enough to welcome what is next. Not what I want necessarily but what the story has in mind. The threads: Winter. Finding locations for the telling of story from The Safety Pin Cafe. Being patient with the process of growing the cafe. Audience participation: I love that part most of all when I tell. The Juggler is mythic -- man and beastie both. Genealogy.
This morning three threads have fit themselves into the eye of my needle, a thick sort of threading takes place when my hands, my imagination and my real life have a place in the web-making. A source that once offered my wandering spirit a place to light when I was taking a leap of faith from one career to something else. The source was a small elfish man and teacher Brian Way.
I was sad to learn he died in 2006, but glad we had met when we did. It was time for me to be meddled with, I was about to meet the play actor who would tickle me in a magical way. The pun was not intended, but it does work. Brian Way was a glorious magician of children's theatre and offered me both a structure (lesson plans) for the start of my journey with storytelling and an invitation to meddle with what was. It was 1993. This morning I found an old text book available at TextBooks.com written by Brian Way in the 1980's. It focuses on 'audience participation.' 'Aue!
The second thread came when the internet led me to the YouTubes that begin this post. Women Jugglers. Yes, the women of Tonga are jugglers! Beautiful. The videos above are that, and the feeling I get, the sensitivities that juggle inside and outside me are alive with life. I listened and watched both the videos in the early morning hours, still dark. I noticed the nuts the women were juggling, and heard the pronunciation of the word: tui tui nuts. Rewinding the video I took a closer look at the nuts and the tree from which the nuts were being gathered. I watched the women, the girls, the kupuna (elders) and I recognized the nuts. In Hawaiian we call them kukui, candlenut. Kukui is the tree of life, tree of light. From the oil of the kukui came the light, the lamps of kukui hele po (the candlenut that came when the darkness came). The women of Tonga have been juggling light for hundreds of years. It was, and is, a game, it is play, it is what they can do. It is what they do.
The third thread was the use of safety pins, once again pinning a need in a common and efficient way.
The every day necessity of our real life safety pin cafe comes from now: today we need an added layer of warmth against the 20 degree temperature outside. It's the Quonset Hut that's in need of extras like a pair of long underwear. Flannel sheets, our layer of choice over and over again serves the purpose.
A double sheet doubled up and safety pinned into lengths of a decorative binding found years ago in a thrift shop (and gentling washed in baking soda and aired of lingering fragrances) keeps the draft out.
JOTS' felt covered door is now a bit changed. She will need some time to get used to the in and outs. She's adaptable, not always living it, she makes do and mostly likes the warmth more than the inconvenience.
Peeking through the newly safety pinned layer of flannel, the coZy den is warm and more ready for the promise of lower temperatures.
There in the dreams and the deep well of listening my belly brain was tickled. The web, the jugglers'
invisible arch and the storyteller's melody pull themselves through the
eye of a needle. Noticing the value of a story present in the everyday,
the story hums. Listen. Hear it?
"The Silver-haired Raven wore splendid garb." A beautiful remnant of turquoise corduroy was enough to cut into a vest for Pete/The Silver-haired bird. A silk-screened wood cut done by friend and fiber artist and partner in collaboration Pam Winstanley I trimmed and hand embroidered with silver metallic thread.
To accentuate and add a bit of shimmer to the shape of the vest I machine stitched the curves of the back and front using that same silver metallic thread
The vest is fully lined with cotton flannel, the last of a once warm flannel sheet that has kept us warm in seasons passed.
Can you spot the turquoise vest on The Silver-haired Raven?
"For centuries women have done needlework. It was a necessary skill, it
was an accomplishment, and it was a chance to appear to be active while
giving one’s mind free reign to consider, to think. Calm, slow, careful
stitches gave the appearance of activity, skill and usefulness, but the
mind was free to think, to be quiet, to wander... An unbroken thread of
women, stitching quietly, their minds pondering, considering, thinking,
deliberating... for ages and ages...-Universidad de Palermo
I remember when I learned to stitch. The old house in the valley. An embroidery hoop and colored thread. Cross-stitch. Already an impatient learner I saw how beautifully the colored thread made pictures, and wanted to make those pictures. Now! My brother newly born, we were new to that house, new to the valley. I am four. How do I remember all this when until I sat to rewind the memory those thoughts weren't there? Time would pass and my embroidery skills would not develop much mostly because I did not practice them. The next stitching memory is that of the old Singer that rose from the box when Ma opened the top and pushed down on it. The dark stained wood and black metal machine filled in the wall inside the bedroom shared with all four of us. Two soft and lumpy big beds: one for Ma and Dad and one for me and my brother. Ma sewed and I said under the lid as the machine roared and the sharp needled chewed up and down the material. Ma.Machine.Stitches. Comfort. Closeness.
Sewing is what I got good at. Good at sewing because I loved it, and did it often. Island girls in the 1950's went to Sewing School. I went to Sewing School one block Honolulu-side of my house on Dalene Way it was an easy walk and I had a cousin who went with me. She became a very accomplished seamstress with a day job that paid her bills for decades. We both had day jobs for decades and paid the bills with skills and commitment to being productive in the modern world. But what is miraculous and meditative for me at this stage of life is how the simple stitch practiced over time is the metaphor I feel mostly in my bones. Coupled with my practice of writing, the longer-still disciple and activity of stitching holds me, grounds me while at the same time allows me access to the "minds [of women who have been] pondering, considering, thinking,
deliberating... for ages and ages."
Fall is definitely in place here in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. It is cold. My body shudders with the reality of the seasonal shift, and without thinking I wish for the warm sunny sky and salty beaches. A soak and a swim would be heaven. As writer, storyteller and stitcher the magic and medicine of art can create the portal or ha'a kaau to open time and space. That's what the story that began The Safety Pin Cafe chronicles are all about. Creating a cozy space to weather the weather and invite solutions transformative yes, and practical as well. I sit to quiet my aching joints and wrap myself in fleece to warm my fingers: regalia for writing in winter. I process the experience of birthing a project of art and get a sense of what to do next, where to go from here. A bug dangles from a fine invisible thread, wiggling at screen level as my cat curls on the table not far from me. What does a Border Witch do after one performance, one border has been crossed?
She could do many things, do nothing, or perhaps she rests and recuperates, gently grounding herself and forgives herself when she snaps with Mars-infused fire because she is tired. Today, the writer, teller and character from the myth writes and reflects on the simple stitch that led to another, and another creating something from nothing ... a vest the color of those salty turquoise beaches, soft and smooth as silky ocean water. The Silver-haired Raven who worn splendid garb is both a character and a flesh-and-bones old man I know. I stitched the vest, I let my thoughts swim with the story preparing for performance. The jitter bugs and fear of odds and ends stay enough away as I stitch and sew and fit and unstitch, pin and stitch again. The art and disciple takes me through and across the borders of known and unknown space. A vest is stitched. A vest is fit. And in the process the Border Witch shows up to do her work.
" When your soul awakens, you begin to truly inherit your life. You leave
the kingdom of fake surfaces, repetitive talk and weary roles and slip
deeper into the true adventure of who you are and who you are called to
become. The greatest friend of the soul is the unknown. Yet we are
afraid of the unknown because it lies outside our vision and our
control. We avoid it or quell it by filtering it through our protective
barriers of domestication and control. The normal way never leads home." - John Donohue
For a month now, The Safety Pin Cafe has surfed the cyber waves,
catching the reader's eye, perhaps, tantalized your imagination. It
tickles me to know that the scents of The Safety Pin Cafe
interest you, for I see that more than 100 readers have sampled the
story that began in the winter. My ancestors were skilled and powerful
water-folk, surfers and voyagers on the wa'a kaulua (canoe) the ride from here to there depended upon a willingness to adapt to the wave, to the water.
If you have read the medicine story and came to
the concluding chapter you might recognize the Granny Smith Apple ...
the choice of apples for a pie served around a table upstairs, above the
cozy cafe that serves no coffee, but offers instead steamed milk and
cinnamon toast. The photos above were taken years ago (before the story
of a border witch strung itself), yet it is that apple and that pan
which will be the cover to the book. Left unattended the photos rested in the archives and now they have been uncovered ... they have a job to do, a joy to encourage, a story to enliven.
How patient am I to learn the
skills of self-publication? Not always very patient, but I persist,
teaching myself how to use new software I press on the brain cells and
hope for bridges to make sense of LibreOffice Writer. I thought the
pages of the chapbook would be ready by now, 'aue ... alas, no, not yet.
Still paddling! Writing this post is a break from that new territory which I wade through like eating a tasty bit of fish filled with bones. Ono (delicious) with some risks.
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